INSICtiT
by Rev. John P. Bradley, President
October, 1977 - CROSSROADS - Page 3
Abbey teaching is value-oriented
I have just returned from a workshop at which six
presidents of church-related colleges in North
Carolina, assisted by a number of experts, attempted
to assess the effectiveness of their colleges in con
fronting their students, as an integral part of the
educational process, with right and wrong. Well,
actually we don’t use these words much anymore... we
talk about values, but we mean, I hope, pretty much
the same thing even in these times when it would seem
that anything anyone does is just fine, leading the
psychologist. Dr. Karl Menninger, to ask, “Whatever
happened to sin?”
Helpful experience
The workshop was a good and helpful experience,
and the six presidents who participated agreed that
Christian colleges such as ours must do a much better
job of making their students aware of the utter im
portance of moral decisions. One would have thought
that this is precisely an essential part of the church-
related college’s reason for existence, but in recent
times, even these institutions have backed off from a
strong emphasis on this commitment. At the workshop
we explored various ways in which a church-related
college can, through the curriculum and in ex
tracurricular ways also, restore this emphasis. No one
had any illusions about the enormous challenge this
poses in our times, in face of the constantly decreasing
assistance in sound value formation previously
provided in great measure by the student’s family, and
' also in competition with the vast and largely pagan
influence of the various media bombarding all of us
every day of our lives.
Throughout the workshop, each college president
gave his views on what a church-related collie ought
to pursue in attempting to help students become aware
of the crucial importance of moral decisions and form
for themselves a sound value system. All six
presidents agreed that success in this had to depend on
the kind of people on campus to whom the students are
regularly exposed. Agreement seemed also to be
reached on the position that any worthwhile un
dergraduate education must be value-oriented and that
in the case of the church-related college, this education
should be enhanced by the Christian tradition that
nourishes each particular college’s identity. All of us
felt, too, that faculty members by and large had not in
their education been given to understand, so highly
specialized has education become, that ultimate
human questions are enormously important in any
worthwhile education. There is a need, therefore, for
college presidents to set up workshops to assist faculty in
value-orienting their teaching in a way that is ap
propriate for college education.
They agreed also that to provide this kind of
education, the small size of our colleges should make it
possible for the faculty and students to get to know one
another well and continue outside the classroom the
value-orientation begun within the curriculum. This
implies, of course, that faculty at our colleges must be
present on the campus well beyond the time spent in
the classroom and be the kind of persons who are in
terested in the student as a htiman being, not simply as
a customer seeking a degree.
Moral, spiritual growth
I personally have felt for a long time that Belmont
Abbey College can be one of the private, church-
relat^ colleges that can survive the precarious years
ahead if we are true to our tradition. In other words,
we shall deserve to survive if our faculty, and, indeed,
all of us who work here, clearly understand that our
goal is to help a student to become a good and
enlightened human being, that moral and spiritual
growth are just as important as intellectual
development. This, of course, demands much
dedication, much time beyond preparation for and the
teaching of classes, by people relatively ill-paid for this
kind of service so important not only to the student but
also to our entire society. Yet I believe the need and
yearning for this kind of education is great at the
present time and will become greater in the years
ahead. And as rising costs and the myriad other
problems afflicting private colleges cause i more and
more of them to close their doors, it is those colleges
which effectively meet this need that will survive.
V alue-oriented
An article in the current issue of TTie Chronicle of
Higher Education by a teacher who knows how to
value-orient her teaching of English literature reveals
what so many of us involved today in college education
have learned from bitter experience; a great many
college students today “seem convinced that values
per se are irrelevant and that their actions and at
titudes make absolutely no difference outside their
personal realms.” This widespread situation
throughout our nation ought to worry anyone who cares
about the viability of our kind of society, for, as Daniel
Bell, a Harvard sociologist, has frequently pointed out,
there must be a certain minimum of shai^ values for
our society to be viable. The article, however, also
reveals h(^, in that the author has found “that once
even the most indifferent of students are exposed to
questions of values, they seem to come alive. After a
term is over, it is not unusual for such students to ask
for outside reading lists and to declare excitement
about ‘learning to think’.”
Our task
Our task here at Belmont Abbey College, and, in
deed, at all such colleges, is most difficult, but I do
believe that many students today, who are, alas, the
victims of a culture that has been called morally and
ethically vacuous, will respond to the right kind of
teaching and the right kind of teachers. Difficult as
this task is nowadays, I believe that Belmont Abbey
College, in virtue oi its Christian commitment rooted in
its history and tradition, can provide this kind of
education, but only if we ourselves realiae that the
dedication and fortitude needed for such a challenging
task must foe drawn from our own spiritual life,
lavishly nourished by the grace of God.
Tyson Is New
Placement
Director
Brenda B. Tyson has been
named director of counseling
and placement at Belmont
Abbey College.
Mrs. Tyson received both the
B.A. and M.Ed. degrees from
Winthrop College. She was also
employed there from 1969-76,
first as an assistant to the
director of guidance, testing,
and placement and then as the
coordinator of student
placement and career coun
seling.
During the 1976-77 school
year, she served as counselor at
Piedmont High Scheol in Union
Co.
Mrs. Tyson is a raemher of
the North Carolina Personnel in
Guidance Associatiua, the
North Carohna Association d
Education, and Phi Kappa Phi
National Honor Society.
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